Social media for personal use.

Signing up for a new account.

At first you should enter a home screen of the site you'd like to create an account for. Then there should be a 'sign up' button that lets you create an account, you'll have to put all your details into the spaces provided then you can be on your way. (picture example below)

Creating your account and making it yours.

Personalise it by putting in profile pictures and a biography telling people who you are and what you like (depending on what site your on). Posting, liking, messaging loads of things/people from around the world are some of the many things you can do after you've created a new account. (picture example below)

Permissions/privacy settings.

On many sites you will have the opportunity to put up permissions/privacy settings to help you keep everything safe. You will be able to stop people from seeing certain pictures if you hide them from the publics sight, and make it so no one can find out your real name. Privacy settings can also vary massively depending on what site you want an account for.

Following people that interest you.

On different social media sites you can follow/friend different people whose work/page/interests you like. Say on Facebook, you find a page on food (and everyone likes food) so you follow/like that page so you can see when ever they upload a new picture or videos or status. Any update will automatically show up on your news-feed/homepage and you can interact with it by liking, commenting on or sharing the picture. (picture example below)

You wouldn't use a LinkedIn profile to communicate with friends and family and you wouldn't use a twitter account to write a detailed report. So what social media sites are good for what?

Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Flickr etc. are all used to contact friends or family and show everyone your work (if you have any to show). LinkedIn and other sites (that I do not know the names of) are used to showcase your professional work if you have a job that that requires you to write reports or file them.

Audiences

Different audiences are searching for different things. If you were looking for ideas for a child's toy because you're a mother, you may look for the ideas on pinterest or Facebook (because there would be a page on it if you searched hard enough). If you are a teenager looking for a fan page on vampires, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram all mainstream sites will have them.

Finding your audience is either very easy or very hard. On some sites you can use hashtags, or different links that activate when someone views your profile that help the audience come to you, there's also people talking about your page but that can be a much slower process. But if you have to find your audience then its a lot harder as some people you think might like your work may not. You have to look for different pages through Google and like them to get a boarder election of people on your radar. Once someone has seen that you have liked/followed their page they might like/follow your page back. Which would mean them looking through the things you've posted and telling their friends (this can be apart of the very slow process). Telling your friends about your page also helps as they can like it and up your follower count so that your page becomes more popular and so more people can see your profile.

Engaging your audience through interaction.

You can interact with your audience through many different things. Eg: competitions, feedback and recommendations. Asking your audience for content or about what they like and what they would suggest you looking at, whether that be another page or a series of books. Creating a conversation or debate on your page can also entice your followers to invite their friends to also like your page so that they can get involved to.

Eventually your page will gain more and more followers making your popularity rise, and your content be seen by a lot more people.